Among those fielded by the BJP include former IAS officer OP Chaudhary and tribal leader Ramdayal Uike.

The BJP on Saturday released its first list of 77 candidates for the Chhattisgarh Assembly polls after a long deliberations at party’s central election committee meeting.

The party decided to field Chief Minister Raman Singh from the Rajnandgaon seat.

Among the 77 candidates announced out of a total of 90 Assembly segments, 14 are women candidates and 14 sitting MLAs have been replaced with new names, Union Minister J. P. Nadda told reporters after the CEC meet attended among others by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah.

Among those fielded by the BJP include former IAS officer OP Chaudhary and tribal leader Ramdayal Uike, who recently left the Congress and joined the BJP.

Chaudhary, the former collector of Raipur, has been fielded from Kharsia constituency while Uike will contest from Pali Tanakhar (ST) seat.

Besides, Chaudhary and Uike, the BJP named Ama Agarwal from Bilaspur, Brij Mohan Agrawal from Raipur city south and Chief Minister Raman Singh would contest from Rajnandgaon constituency seat.

Nadda also said that BJP will also contest Mizoram Assembly elections on 13 seats.

The BJP also released the list of 38 candidate for the upcoming Telangana.

“The party has considered the aspirations of our dedicated workers in Telangana region. Adequate representation has been given to representatives of all communities,” Nadda said.

Elections in Chhattisgarh is scheduled in two phases on November 12 and November 20, while the election in Mizoram and Telangana are scheduled on November 28 and December 7.